Textual Enhancement as a Strategy for Communicative Grammar Teaching: A Study Carried Out on Senior Secondary ESL Learners

Even in a classroom that uses Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methodology, strategic teaching of grammar, sometimes, finds a backseat, which may hinder acquisition of desirable language competence by the learners. Grammar should, therefore, ideally be taught following the basic principles of CLT methodology in a communicative language classroom. This paper seeks to find out if grammar can be taught effectively, using textual enhancement as a strategy, in a communicative classroom. The methodology adopted revolves round an experiment conducted on a homogeneous sample of fifty ESL learners of 12th standard class. The students are divided into two equal groups. One group is imparted textual enhancement based grammar instruction, while the other group is given a similar instruction on grammar for the same length of time, but without textual enhancement. Both the groups were then made to give an achievement test to measure their progress in comparison with each other. The group which received grammar instruction based on textual enhancement was found to show comparatively more progress than the other group. This leads us to the conclusion that textual enhancement as a strategy for communicative grammar teaching may yield desired outcome in an ESL classroom.